Episode 38: “QUEUES”

Today, M. Swann, Gilberte’s father, has suddenly left the queue of the second water intake and has gone “for a walk”, which has caused a commotion among the disciplined clients of the spa, who have interpreted this act of free will as a bad omen: a signal that an insurrection is looming or, God forbid, a war. After the second climb of the day, I went to see Gilberte who was queuing in front of the Sprudel geyser and she has pointed out to me that seven or eight individuals follow me everywhere. I wanted to play a joke on her and replied that she was being followed by eighty-six individuals, referring to those who followed her in the queue. But she didn’t find it all that funny and she has sent me packing. Willing to check if Gilberte’s statement was true, I turned suddenly. Indeed, a lot of people queued behind me. I don’t understand what their purpose may be. I am not a source of healing like hot mineral waters, as far as I know. Maybe I have become, without intending to, a style guide in terms of men’s fashion. (The truth is that the Tyrolean hat included in the climbing equipment, looks real nice on me.) While I was going to climb the rock for the third time today, I heard a thud. In particular, the typical noise that a grand piano makes when falling from a height of three floors on someone with a mustache. And when I returned to the hotel in the evening, I learned with dismay that my hearing impression was correct: My clandestine roommate, General Von Krieghammer, had suffered an accident. When he was leaving the Grandhotel after steaming in a vapor room, a grand piano has fallen from the third floor leaving him flat like a mustachioed sheet of paper.